A Good Night
by Kameka
Summary: This story is a collaborative effort between Kameka and Phoenix - A pre-series Marcos ficlet.


Title: A Good Night  
  
By: Kameka and Phoenix  
  
Rating: G  
  
Disclaimer: Marcos Morales, Zoe Busiek, and any other characters which deal with the Lifetime show 'Wild Card' do not belong to us; any original characters, however, do. If you'd like to use them, please ask. No money has been made by either of us, so there's no need to sue us.  
  
Notes: In this round robin, we traded off every 300 words or so. We give many thanks to Aby, who read over this looking for any major difficulties. -- From Phoenix: pleasure to write with Kameka. I like this story. First collaborative round robin on a site...haven't written since high school. Thank you. -- From Kameka: The first Marcos story up - and I'm not even that fond of the character LOL It was a lot of fun writing with Phoenix, and I hope you enjoy the result!  
  
Summary: This story is a collaborative effort between Kameka and Phoenix - A pre-series Marcos ficlet.  
  
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Marcos Morales opened his locker and dumped the books he carried on top of the pile that was on the bottom before crouching and pulling out the ones he needed to do his homework with. He was considered quite an oddity along the halls of Evanston High, a jock, one of the best around as a matter of fact, that relied on his brain to get good grades instead of well-meaning teachers that wanted to get a win in the next game. The Hispanic teenager knew that it wasn't only other students, fellow jocks especially, that saw him as strange, but also the teachers. What student wouldn't want to have a free ride through high school? Marcos, however, not only had a finger in every type of sports and was without a doubt one of the most popular guys in the school but was also considered a 'brain' of sorts. He didn't have the best grades in the school but he was up there.  
  
With a sigh, he debated whether or not he should bring home his American History book to read up on tomorrow's lesson. He finally decided that he would, though it was more of a question of his own curiosity and brushing up; he'd read the entire textbook front to back in the first month of school because history had always been his favorite subject. Putting the books he'd finally decided on in his Jansport bag, he turned to the group of friends that had accompanied him to the bank of lockers. The three jocks were having a great time, making crude jokes and laughing at them as they waited for their bookish leader to finish.  
  
Mike Lawrie straightened up from where he was bent over laughing.  
  
Marcos looked between narrowed eyes, a half smile on his lips. Mike turned to face Marcos and a second passed in silence as both faces drained emotion to a standstill. Marcos opened his mouth to speak, but another one of the guys started to laugh again, and both Mike and Marcos laughed as well. Their attentions faded away from the question and moving to the present moment.  
  
The questions of location and events faded as a flock of people passed through, moving from class to class. Knapsacks flung over shoulders, books swinging in arms, and feet seemingly shuffling in unison. The group of boys instinctively followed the movement, and marched down the hall, continuing their conversations of nothing and everything. Glancing into classrooms as they walked, Marcos contemplated the gathering. Thought of the way that everyone comes together in a room, and there is a sense of belonging. Looked down the hall, the walls and ceiling and floor moving with step in a perspective of the light traveling with each footfall. Somehow all of this didn't mean anything to him. All he was consciously thinking was of the words his friends were speaking. And to the end of the hall, his mind worked this way.  
  
As they walked outside, pushing open the big, clumsy windowed doors of the main entrance to the school, the sun behind clouds cast rays of light down like spotlights. Eyes again narrowed, and they looked quickly at each other, one to another and then to the scene spread out in front of them. Boys and girls of every high school age were standing around the courtyard and talking, some in good moods, some bad, but all enjoying the momentary freedom. Some of them smoked, some of them looked angry and others just appeared to want to get away more than anything in the world. Others were more over just busy, probably with the thoughts of homework, projects and friends to take care of and be taken care of by. So through the crowd they walked, reached the street, and quickly slapped hands and fingers, said a short bark "goodbye" and parted paths. Two groups splitting two separate directions on one street. Continuing to walk through their lighted perspectives as if still in school.  
  
Marcos entered the cozy house that he had lived in all of his life with a quickly shouted "Hey!" for anyone who happened to be home at the moment. The days when mothers would be home for their children was now long gone, the majority of his friends having been latchkey kids for years as he had himself. He dumped his dark blue bag on the tiled foyer into the house and headed to where the heart of every teenage boy lived: the kitchen. He dumped his letter jacket on the back of a kitchen chair as he began to rummage through the refrigerator, reminding himself to write a note for his parents as a reminder that someone needed to go grocery shopping again soon. Eventually settling on leftovers from dinner the night before, he popped the plate he fixed into the microwave and backtracked to the house entrance to get his bag, dumping it unceremoniously on the kitchen table.  
  
He pulled the books from inside the bag and debated which subject to work on first, finally deciding on History because it would be easy to read over what he needed for tomorrow's class while he ate. The half-finished math assignment could wait until afterwards and then the paper for English would be an easy way to finish off the night of homework.  
  
Even with his snacking and helping his two younger siblings with their work when they came home from their middle school, Marcos finished his homework quickly. He scrawled a note on a piece of paper and left it sitting on the counter before he ran upstairs to grab the leather jacket he had bought in the hopes of showing that he wasn't just another jock. With that, he was out the door and on his way to meet his friends.  
  
The sun was starting to settle behind the horizon at the time the door shut behind Marcos. He stepped down the stairs onto the driveway, and his feet felt good inside his shoes. He knew where he was headed, and started subconsciously walking in the direction. His plans were to meet with Mike, go to the Old Ironsides tavern, use the ID he had from a friend that looked like him, and have a few drinks and forget about school for the night.  
  
Most of the time when he went out, Marcos preferred to go to a friend's house, sit down for a few hours with buddies, and just chat. Other times, however, he did feel that he needed to be around a crowd. Crowds had a strange effect on Marcos. Some times and places were better off when there were large amounts of people there to share the experience. But, in his opinion, Marcos believed that a person's life is more like a single room. The things inside of it were meant for only a few to see, not an entire city or country. People seem to pass so freely through places and spaces, sometimes through life, without ever truly seeing the things that are around them. Marcos wondered how tonight would go. If there would be anyone there who might see life in the same perspective as he, if anything would happen he would remember for the rest of his life, or if the night would pass as uneventful as an ordinary day of classes.  
  
He walked as the sun darkened the land, pictures of friends in his mind. Reminiscing on past conversations and times. Thinking of things that could occur, mixing thoughts of past present and future.  
  
He walked up the shallow hill, approaching his friend's house on his way to the club, the sun just now casting its last long shadows on the street. Reaching for the door, a reflection of his face on the metal knob, his thoughts faded to black, as the door opened. Danny immediately called out to him from his bedroom on the second floor, having seen Marcos come up the pathway.  
  
"Hey, Marky! Almost ready!" Before the echo of the hated nickname had completely died down, while Marcos was still exchanging greetings with Danny's family when the other boy came racing down the stairs to reveal a body clad in similar clothing to Marcos: torn jeans and a t shirt proclaiming the logo of a popular band. There was even a similar leather jacket slung over his shoulders. Yelling goodbyes to his family, Danny steered Marcos back out onto the street and they climbed into Danny's car to continue their way to Old Ironsides, where they were meeting the rest of their friends.  
  
They made it there in short order, Danny never deigning to drive the speed limit, or anywhere close to it. They parked the car in the half empty lot and climbed out, heading for the door to the place. A bouncer met them, a huge man named Leo that they were familiar with from past excursions to the club. With a quick look at the proffered ID and an even quicker flip of a wrist, Leo allowed them entry into the building.  
  
Marcos was immediately hit by a blast of music, the loud rock booming from the speakers that were situated around the room for when there was no band on stage. There was a band supposed to be playing tonight but they weren't expected for another hour at the least, not wanting to arrive too early and have all of the occupants worn out and leaving early in the night. He looked around the gathered group of people, finally spotting Mike standing off to one side attempting to chat up a blonde wearing too much makeup and dressed like a cheaper version of Madonna. With a nudge in Danny's side and a grin, they headed towards their friend.  
  
"How's it going, Mike?!?" Marcos half yelled, half whispered under the decibels of the club music. Mike turned startled, to hear his name, and his attentions on the girl subsided, momentarily. "Oh. Hi," was all he could muster at that time. A beer in one hand, the other stretched out to greet his two friends. They exchanged welcomes, and formed a circle, almost ignoring the blonde girl. She put a hand on Mike's shoulder, had a look in her eye like dollar signs, said something too softly to hear, and then headed towards the bar. The three looked at each other, and in unison once again, laughed at nothing.  
  
"Where're our drinks?" Marcos asked, and Mike looked down at his beer for a half second, and then smiled at his buddies. They instinctively moved to the bar, not particularly caring where the blonde was or what she was doing at this point. Things forgotten, stresses left behind, just the way Marcos had wanted his evening to pan out.  
  
Short of an hour later, they were sitting at a table, sipping beer from a shared pitcher, filling glasses and talking and laughing. Watching the people move around them, shuffle and dance. The music was loud, it was smoky in the building, and the conversation was difficult to maintain due to distractions. But all in all, the atmosphere allowed the past to drain from their spirits and into a haze of intoxication and happiness of good company. There was nothing else that any of them could think of that they needed at this point.  
  
The band soon came in and began setting up their instruments and the crowd grew larger as more people, both those legal and those illegal, filtered in through the doors. There was a lot of excitement in the air because Molten Core was playing, a band that was getting extremely popular, especially among the high school students. As the area around them got noisier, Marcos and company abandoned their table and the drained dry pitcher to circulate, knowing that part of the experience of Old Ironsides was to not only be there, but to be seen there.  
  
There was a large congregation of students from Evanston High, all of them having gotten in with fake ID cards, and Marcos and company joined them, flashing devil-may-care smiles at the girls and giving high-fives to the guys as they began to talk about last week's big game, their chances at winning the next one, sliding into gossip about students that weren't present, other schools, and other topics that neatly sidestepped the issue of schoolwork. Another small cluster of people who had just arrived joined the group already present and more smiles, high-fives, and hugs were exchanged around before the large group broke into smaller pockets of students. It was much less conspicuous to the owners and bouncers, should they decide that they no longer wanted the underage clientele, although they normally had no problem with it as long as some sort of ID with the proper age was shown.  
  
Marcos joined a group ruled over by one of the more popular girls in school, Zoe Busiek. The teenager was a Sophomore, two years behind his own class ranking of Senior, and was dressed remarkably Brat-Packer-esque with a long loose dress and a man's shirt tied over it, her long sandy blonde hair hanging down her pack, not structured by the gallons of hairspray that was the fashion at the moment. Why Zoe was one of the more popular girls at school was obvious: her open nature allowed her to fit in with basically any student or group of students without problems. While she wasn't one of the 'traditional' popular girls, she was well liked by everyone - even the jocks. Quite a feat considering she essentially hated all sports.  
  
Marcos looked at Zoe. The band stopped playing the song they were on, kick drums vibrating still, guitars waning out, and they slowly began onto the next song. The club was still filled with people of all ages. High school kids who were underage, the typical bar hoppers of the mid twenties, looking for mates, and those who were basically passing through. Zoe talked with a couple of high school students. She was laughing at the nonsensical logic that teenagers came up with, a smile on her face. Marcos stepped over to her and the small group within the group to which she talked and joked. He smiled at her and the other high school kids; half smiles returned back to him.  
  
Zoe noticed that he wasn't inebriated, while the majority of the club was intoxicated past the point of being able to walk straight. Zoe held a Rum and Coke, Marcos his beer, neither of them had really noticed what else anyone was drinking; they only knew that alcohol was in everyone's system. It was so loud in the club that Marcos thought he wouldn't be able to speak and actually be heard, until Zoe put an arm on his elbow, leaned in and said to his ear, "How's it going?"  
  
Marcos was a little startled, almost felt as if he would fall over in the direction she touched, and then opened his eyes a little wider and smiled again. He leaned back to her opposite ear and said, a little louder than she had, "Fantastic." She smiled at that. The small group they were standing with drew their attentions to others in the overall gathering they were standing with, and Zoe and Marcos stood essentially entirely alone amidst hundreds of people.  
  
Each looked around, scanning faces and attitudes, moods and personalities, then back to each other, and each flashes a quick smile. Eyes were a little hazy, a little bloodshot from the alcohol in their blood. They stood side by side and casually watched the people movements slowly leaning and talking to each other. Now at the point where they wished to almost forget about the night itself, school, and the next day altogether and wrap things into a complete evening out with friends. The band finished the song they were playing, and the air went near silent as a few hundred people clapped and screamed their approval at the sound of Molten Core.  
  
Friends, fun, and lack of worry about what tomorrow would bring. It was a good night to be a teenager.  
  
*  
  
The End *  
  
Reviews are welcome! 


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